You asked, what's the best budget pizza oven? I found a triple-fuel model for £250

Thirteen years ago, when my family and I stepped into the world of wood fired food, it was a lot of things: diverse, experimental, welcoming, rewarding, and delicious. For all that we loved it, there was one thing missing. Accessibility.

To get a good pizza oven you needed to set aside £500 and even then you’d be making compromises on fuel types, size, and style. So, when I set out on my project to bring the best pizza ovens on the market to woman&home, I was determined to find a pizza oven that would suit beginners and come to them at a reasonable price. Enter, Woody Pizza Ovens.

These clever little ovens were developed back in 2021 when everyone was cooking from their gardens and aspiring for luxury outdoor living. Seeing a gap in the market, James and John, founders of Woody, decided to design a pizza oven that could cook on gas, coal, and wood and they wanted to keep costs down. The end result is the Woody Pizza Oven — and it’s nothing short of delightful.

Woody Pizza Oven Specifications

Unboxing the Woody Pizza Oven

The Woody Pizza Oven comes in a long, big box that’s exactly proportional to what’s inside. Most people would be fine picking this up and carrying it around, but if you know you’re not that strong or you have any particular aches and pains (when this arrived at my house, my brother had a slipped disc and so he had to steer well clear of any lifting) it’s worth having an extra pair of hands to help you out.

The Woody Pizza Oven comes as part of a kit, which is a life-saver if you’ve never had a pizza oven before — all your extras are covered and you won’t find yourself missing an essential or chasing random parts down on Amazon.

So, you’ll open up one box to find another box and there might even be another box inside of there. The main bulk of the Woody Pizza oven is pre-assembled, you’ll just need to put the chimney on top, whichever attachment you choose to use for fuel (there are different ones for wood and gas) and you’ll need to get the door ready. It’s only a 15 minute job getting everything in place and that’s largely thanks to Woody’s website which is replete with helpful tutorial videos and guides.

Inside the kit you’ll get tools to help you with assembly as well as a case for protecting and carrying your oven, a peel for cooking with your oven, a thermometer, and a carry cover. I meant it when I said they kit you out.

Who would the Woody Pizza Oven suit?

There isn’t a pizza oven that’s more perfect for beginners than the Woody Pizza Oven. The fact that it comes as part of a set means that you’ll have all the accessories that any new chef might need, but it’s also a great price point. You won’t find a cheaper, more comprehensive pizza oven set than the Woody, especially not one of this quality. It feels robust and hardy, certainly able to contend with the craziness of my family home (dog and all), so you can test the waters of pizza cooking without worrying about flushing thousands down the drain.

The Woody Pizza Oven also offers a lot of versatility. If you have used a pizza oven before, you’ll know that the different types of fuels offer very different flavours. Gas is quick and consistent, logs and kindling give a nice smokiness and charcoal sits somewhere in between. Adventurous chefs will know that it’s nice to have the option to switch between different modes and the Woody Pizza Oven makes that easy.

You’ve also got the benefit of this being relatively compact. The Woody Pizza Oven packs away and, with its neat carry case, it can be stored in a shed, boot cupboard, or anywhere you deem fit. You’ll have to wait for it to cool, which can be a source of some frustration for people, but when you’re getting a bargain like this, it’s a compromise worth making.

What is the Woody Pizza Oven like to use?

Getting the Woody Pizza Oven warm and ready to cook is easy. You’ll need to let it burn for twenty minutes to half an hour the first time that you use it, because you’ll want to get rid of factory dirt, dust, and debris. Make sure you’ve got all the packaging out from around the pizza stone, especially in the back corners, otherwise you could be burning nasty stuff into your oven.

Once you’ve done that and let it cool, you won’t need to repeat this. The next time you use the oven, it’ll be warm and ready to cook in about 15-30 minutes. All the controls are at the back and what you do with them will depend on the fuel you’re using. Woody has attachments that make this all easy to control, which is why I love it for beginners and pizza novices.

Test 1: pizza

You won’t be surprised to see that the first test I do on any pizza oven is making a pizza. It’s in the name, so it should be a really reliable aspect of your oven. As someone who’s grown up cooking in these ovens, I’m aware that I find handling them really easy, so I tested this with some friends who have never used pizza ovens before. The Woody Pizza Oven is designed to fit pizzas around the 12-13” size, which is as big as you would want to cook really — any bigger and it’ll be difficult to turn.

I rolled out 8oz of dough to make a 12” pizza base and topped it to make a simple margherita. This is nice and light in the way of toppings, so it’s a great baseline for checking how well a pizza oven cooks the base as well as the cheese on top.

I slipped the pizza into the oven and found the paddle provided by Woody was robust enough to get control of the whole cooking process. You need to be quite careful when you’re sliding the peel underneath, as it’s easy to shove the pizza into the flames at the back — here’s where the crust will burn and catch. I’d recommend keeping a fairly steep angle on your peel, which you’ll pick up in time.

My first pizza cooked in 60 seconds, which is really speedy, but it’s also expected when it’s the first one in the oven. The stone can get really hot when there’s not food on it. Cooking eight pizzas back to back brought up the average time to seventy six seconds, which is still speedy and it gives a really thorough bake right through. The end results were that the Woody Pizza Oven nails the crispy base and doughy crust — just didn’t struggle one bit with my dough. It gets the cheese on top melted nicely and, on the slower cooks, the vegetables were wonderful and tender on top. It’s worth keeping an eye on your gas and the oven’s temperature as it can be simultaneously quite fierce, whilst back to back food will cool the base down quickly. This is when you end up with holes in the base (your peel will tear undercooked dough) and burnt tops. Once you get the hang of things, you’ll naturally tune into the oven and be able to respond by cranking up the heat or turning it down, but there’s definitely an adjustment period.

I mentioned the pizza novices that I bought along, because they all struggled to turn the pizza in the oven on their first go. Everyone ‘shunted’ the pizza into the flames and ended up with a crust that was more charred than they would have liked. With practice, everyone managed to cook a perfect pizza, but it’s worth emphasising that learning curve.

Test 2: roasted vegetables

There’s nothing I love more than experimenting with what you can cook in your pizza oven and one of the best, most simple, experiments you can do is on making roasted vegetables. All you need is a cast iron skillet and some vegetables chopped, tossed in olive oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

The cooking process for this is slower, but the Woody did a beautiful job. Every minute, I gave my skillet a 90 degree spin and watched the tips of my vegetables blacken and bubble whilst everything reduced to their intense, flavourful goodness. In five minutes, my vegetables could come out the Woody Pizza Oven. Of all the tasks I set this, I think the vegetables were one of the greatest successes. Yes, the task is simple, but this was a thorough, consistent result that I replicated night after night.

Test 3: nachos

I said pizza ovens were versatile and nothing proves that more than my nacho plate. You’ll spot that the flames look extra bright in this image and that’s because my nacho chips are actually on fire at the back. Some pizza ovens have flames coming from the side and some have them from the back. Personally, I like the side ones because they’re easier to avoid with your food. When the flames are at the back it’s tricky to stop your food from falling too deep into the oven and starting a second fire.

Flames aside, my nachos were great. It took fifty seconds to nicely brown the corn chips, melt the cheese, and cook my salsa through. We had crispiness, stringyness and a whole world of nacho delights.

Test 4: cookies

A meal isn’t a meal without a sweet treat, which is why I like to do a baking test. Using my cast iron skillet, I baked some classic cookies. You’ll need to let the flames die down a little, because these are more of a low and slow bake, but in five minutes, with rotations every minute and a half, you should end up with golden cookies. I find that mine are always on the doughy side, which I like in a cookie, but if you want something crispier you can just turn the temperature down and leave the cookies in for longer. It’s a winning test.

Cleaning the Woody Pizza Oven

You can see that the inside of the pizza oven doesn't look quite as pretty as it might when you first start cooking. That's natural, normal, and most people show off their scrapes as a matter of pride. I'd recommend investing in a wire brush, so you can sweep the oven and give it a good clean, but you don't really need to remove the stone to wash it down. If you like the look of a clean oven, you need to wait a long time to make sure the stone is cool before you remove it. Then, and only then, should you wash the stone and make sure that you're using warm, soapy water. Chemicals inside your pizza oven are bad news.

How does the Woody Pizza Oven compare?

If you’re looking at the Woody Pizza Oven, it’s highly likely that you’re either a beginner or shopping on a budget. For both of these categories, I would say the Woody is a market leader. However, before you dive into a purchase, you might want to take a look at the Jamie Oliver Tefal Pizza Oven. This is slimmer and smaller than the Woody, which is great if you have a small space. Cleverly, the base inside the Tefal actually rotates, so you won’t need to use the peel to turn your pizza. This saves you from the chance of pushing your pizza into the flames — an issue I spotted with first-time pizza chefs on the Woody — and it makes life really easy. So, if you were nervous about how to use the Woody Pizza Oven, this could be a great crutch.

There are some downsides to the Tefal though. It’s more expensive than the Woody and you also don’t get the different fuel types at the tips of your fingers. The Tefal is only gas, so you don’t get the choice to cook with wood or charcoal, which is a shame because they offer very different flavours. You also get a lot more space with the Woody and it feels like a more holistic, impressive package. If I was brand new to pizza making, I’d put my money (and bag the saving) that the Woody Pizza Oven has to offer.

Should you buy the Woody Pizza Oven?

Beginners, savers, and pizza enthusiasts alike will get great use out of the Woody Pizza Oven. It might not offer the luxury Gozney experience, but when you’re brand new to this style of cooking, you don’t need all the bells and whistles. This is perfect.

How we test

At woman&home, how we test pizza ovens is a rigorous process. I've taken charge of the whole enterprise, because my family runs a pizza business. From when I was 13, I spent my summers cooking pizza and I still know how to knock one out in 60 seconds. And, yes, I can spin the dough on my hands.

When I'm testing these, I have a series of tests that I put them through. Of course, I make pizza, because what's an oven without this? But I also make roasted vegetables, nachos, sweet treats, and calzones. I like to make sure that an oven can live up to some versatility, because you should be able to cook a whole host of different dishes in here.

I also make notes on what the oven is like to set up, whether you can keep it clean, and I'll clue you up on all the important features that you need to know about before you make a purchase. In short, you'll know everything you could possibly need to once you've read my review. And, if you still have questions, don't hesitate to send me an email. I like to speak pizza,